Ananda
by behindtintedglass
Summary: In coming back home - back to John Watson - Sherlock Holmes finds himself face-to-face with the most staggering discovery of all. Inspired by the Series 3 clip shown at the 2013 San Diego Comic Convention. No spoilers.


You watch him from your peripheral vision as you remove your goggles. The experiment has now gotten to the stage when it needs be left alone, and it's a critical one, since you've already ruined the first crucial eyeball when he first came in. Good thing you still have a fresh supply. And it's a good thing he doesn't know. Or if he does, since he really isn't as stupid as he believes himself to be, then it's a good thing he doesn't mind.

He's in the sitting room, currently lounging on his favorite armchair and reading that godforsaken crime novel. He has taken off his jacket and slung it haphazardly on one of the armrests. On his jumper, there are still traces of the crisps he had at the corner – sour cream, his favorite kind, judging from the color of the crumbs. His dishwater hair, now greyer than it was since you last saw him, is sticking out on one side from the way he's ruffling it unconsciously, trying to figure out who the murderer is in the story.

_Obvious_, you think ruefully. It was the butler's sister-in-law.

You watch him settled so comfortably there, so ordinary, so unassuming, and so at ease, and somehow you feel a tightness in your chest, similar to how it felt when you inhaled that poisonous gas in Belgium. You remember how you discovered then that breathing isn't boring after all, not when the carbon monoxide that invaded your lungs nearly prevented you from seeing for yourself the tremors in his hands, the ones you first saw in one of those grainy videos Mycroft sent to you while you were stationed in Indonesia.

In that video, he was just walking up the steps to the flat. His hands were shaking as he was turning the key in the lock. You did not have to guess where he had been. It was apparent with the way mud stained his jeans from kneeling on the wet earth, with the way his fingers had bled from the thorns when he clutched at the roses too tightly, with the way he was limping with that blasted cane.

You remember how you stared at the monitor even as the video abruptly cut into static. The last thing you heard was the aching, puzzling question he had whispered then:

_"It's been a year. Where's my miracle?"_

You look at him now, warm and soft and illuminated by the crackling fireplace, and you remember that feeling of being unable to breathe.

It's been a while since you've been back. But it is in seeing him right there, in the heart of 221B Baker Street, turning the pages of his book with steady hands, that you feel, for the first time, that you're home.

And as this epiphany hits you, the impact is magnified as he chooses that exact moment to look up, and you barely manage to keep from jumping in surprise as you realize belatedly that you've been staring.

You want to look away, but you can't. You want to speak, but you can't. Your mind is once again at full speed, but this time it is spinning out of control with all the questions stumbling against each other and getting themselves lodged in your throat.

_'Why did you forgive me?'_

_'Why did you mourn?'_

_'Why did you welcome me back?'_

_'Why are you here?'_

_'Why am I here?'_

_'Why do you stay?'__  
_  
_'Why me?'_

_'... Why me?'_

"Mary."

Both of you blink in confusion at what your mouth chooses to articulate in interpretation of the utter chaos your mind and heart are submerged in. He puts down the book on his lap and leans forward, eyeing you warily. "What about her?"

You open your mouth soundlessly, helplessly. _'No,'_ you want to tell him desperately. _'Please, you don't understand. Don't pull away. I cannot bear you being away. Never again. I just want to say… I just want to say… _

_What the hell do I want to say?'__  
_  
"Mary is..." Your voice catches. You clear your throat. "She is very fortunate."

He tilts his head to one side like a confused puppy, like he doesn't get it. You marvel and can't help but feel a little gratified at this turning of tables from this afternoon, when he asked you.

You take a deep breath. You're not really sure why, but somehow it seems imperative that he understands.

"Miss Mary Morstan is very lucky to have you."

And you see it, the immediate effect just the mere mention of her name has on him. His rigid frame immediately relaxes, gentling at the edges, warmth creeping into his eyes and in his smile, his face softening into the tenderest look you have ever seen on him. It is not unlike watching someone curl comfortably under a sheet before settling to sleep. Perhaps in many ways, that is exactly who Miss Morstan is to him: a soothing, protective blanket during his coldest, loneliest hours.

You swallow at the sudden tightness of your throat. You know the exact cause of those said dark hours.

He drops his gaze suddenly, acutely aware of the affection that has escaped his features. He peeks at you from beneath his lids. "You really believe that?" he asks shyly.

You stare at him. "Don't be an idiot." Then, more gently, you add, "I don't just believe. I know."

'_I'm the only one who knows your true worth_,' is what you don't say. '_I can write a scientific paper about it, if you'd like. Though that would cover several volumes.'_

He is looking at you curiously now. "Mary is lucky to have me," he repeats.

You nod. "Yes."

His expression remains unreadable. "Mary."

"Yes," you say again with an annoying, uncomfortable sense of déjà vu, feeling like one of you is being dense but you're not sure who.

He is smiling at you, but there is something wrong, something hidden, something… _disappointed_ in that smile. He gets up and heads for the door.

And this is when panic and terror seizes you internally.

'_Is he leaving? Why is he leaving? Was it something I said? What was wrong in what I said?_

_Or perhaps… was it something I _didn't_ say?'__  
_  
You turn it over and over in your head until… oh.

_Oh._

Surely he must already know? Surely he must be aware of this basic tenet of your existence, the tether that has kept you from destroying yourself, from giving up on yourself?

Surely… _surely,_ he must already know?

You watch him as he reaches out to grasp – wait, why is he getting that? – your scarf from its place on the rack behind the door. He runs his fingers through it reverently, lovingly.

Sadly.

He stares at the striped blue piece of cloth, and you wonder. Surely he must already know. But perhaps… perhaps he needs to hear it from you. This sentiment.

And fortunately, this is something you understand all too well.

"John."

He looks at you then with a start, as if you have just broken through a private memory. You catch his gaze... and hold it firmly in yours.

"You should know, John... I count myself as the luckiest of them all."

His look of wide-eyed surprise confirms your theory. The idiot doesn't know after all.

He doesn't know that you know.

"I am very, very lucky to have you, John."

At that moment, his face crumples ever so minutely, almost obscurely. The expression passes over his face so quickly that any other person might not have even caught it.

But you are not any other person. You, who know every tick and flutter of his gestures and can divine thirty-six different meanings behind each one, in alphabetical order.

And still – _still_ – he remains an enigma to you. A puzzle with no solution.

That fascinates you and thrills you and frightens you like nothing else.

He comes forward then, your scarf entwined neatly in his fingers. He is gazing at you openly now, and your heart is hammering against your ribs at precisely the same tempo it once did when you were backed against a dead-end alley, staring down the pistol of a high-profile member of the Cuban mafia.

Before all of this – before John – you had not been afraid to die.

Now, ever since that fateful fall from grace, every moment apart from him had been spent praying to a deity you never even believed in before.

_'Please God, let me live. I need to come home._

_I need to come back to him.'__  
_  
And then… amazingly, as if somehow he has been able to decode your heavily encrypted thoughts, he whispers:

"Thank you. For coming back."

And… _there._

God, _there_ it is.

All of those maddening questions swirling through your head. _There_ is your answer.

There it is in his smile.

The real one. The genuine one. The complete one. The smile you crossed the entire world for, the smile you dove through the fire for, the smile you died for, killed for, lived for. The smile you are beginning to terribly fear is becoming more addictive than your seven percent solution, the smile you will do absolutely anything to see over and over and over again.

And you are reminded, sharply, suddenly, of the time you were hiding in the slums of New Delhi, and the widow with eleven children living next door just gave birth to her twelfth: a weakly crying premature baby girl.

"What are you going to name her?" you murmured as you watched her nurse the sickly infant.

And there, amidst the rotting walls and the stench of the sewers, the mother was absolutely glowing as she gazed down at her child.

"_Ananda_," she had said, the Sanskrit syllables rolling worshipfully on her tongue.

"What does it mean?" you had asked.

And here, now, with him gazing back at you with the same mesmerizing light in his eyes… you finally, _finally _understand.

"'_Joy which the universe cannot be without_.'"

It's you. It has been you all along.

_You_ are his happiness.

… And you took that away from him. You took his happiness away from him when you took yourself away.

And you are his miracle… because you gave him back his happiness when you came back to him.

You keep your eyes fixed on him as he finally closes the distance between both of you and reaches up and over your head to tenderly hang your scarf on your shoulders, letting the ends fall in front of your chest.

'_You shouldn't thank me,_' you think in despair. '_Because I didn't do it for you. I didn't come back for you_.'

He smooths the cloth down over your shirt, and lets his hand rest over your heart. And your own hand twitches in an aborted movement, seized with the compulsion to hold his hand and keep it there.

'_I didn't come back for you_,' you tell him in your mind. '_I came back _because_ of you. I came back _because_ it's you. I came back for _me_._

_Because you, John Watson... you are all I want. You are all I need. You're everything. Everything._

_I didn't pray to live for you. I prayed to live because I want to live with you._'

Somehow, the words become lost as his nimble, steady, capable hands take hold of both ends of your scarf and deftly tie into a knot. You blink at the gesture as he pauses, one hand resting at the knot next to your throat, the other coming back to hesitantly hover over your heart.

There is a promise in that gesture. A knot that is effectively binding… and permanent.

Your Adam's apple bobs against the knot as you swallow, understanding too well what the gesture means, what his actions are saying more loudly and more eloquently than the English language can ever hope to express.

'_Never again_,' he is telling you. '_Never take yourself away from me ever again.__You belong with me. We belong together_.'

He looks up at you wryly then, his expression a unique combination of apology, plea, and stubborn determination.

'_Otherwise._..' his fingers are saying as they curl around your scarf and your heart tightly. '_Otherwise… you have no choice._

_I'm binding myself to you_.'

You inhale sharply then, and he wrongly interprets it as you needing to breathe, needing space. He abruptly takes three steps backward, and damn it you want to pull him back in because you don't need him to be far away – you need him _closer_. "John..."

He looks back at you helplessly. He seems to be waiting for something.

Waiting for _you_, it seems.

"Why," your voice breaks, and you force a cough to cover it up. "Why am I wearing my scarf right now?"

He looks at you oddly, almost amusedly, as if the answer should be obvious.

"Because," he says slowly, "We're going out, aren't we?"

"We are?" you repeat in genuine surprise, and _oh _that triumphant smirk that blooms on his features. It's _beautiful._

"Yes," he answers with a mischievous curve to his mouth. "Because there is only one reason why your phone in your jacket has vibrated three consecutive times for the last eighteen minutes."

He arches an eyebrow at you meaningfully. "There is only one person those messages can come from."

And then… he bursts into a grin so wide it lights up his entire face. It lights up the entire _room._

Oh, how clever. Clever, _clever _John Watson.

You grin back. "Lestrade. Case," you confirm.

And after pausing for effect, you tilt your head nonchalantly. "Coming?"

And there it is again. That smile you came back for.

"Sherlock Holmes, I wouldn't miss it for the _world_."


End file.
